Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/829

 £0. VEEDER: A CENTURY OF JUDICATURE 815 an invigorating influence that his services were of most value. He resembled Bramwell in an ingrained aptitude for logic, and often displayed a tendency to reach beyond estabHshed authorities and the particular facts of individual cases for broad principles and logical symmetry. It must be confessed, also that he sometimes went to the other extreme in his desire to do full justice in particular cases, " The law of England," he once said, " is not a science. It is the practical application of the rule of right and wrong to the particular case before the court, and the canon of law is that that rule should be adopted and applied to the case which people of honor, candor and fairness in the position of the two parties would apply in respect of the matter in hand." In the pursuit of this laudable end he occasionally seemed to overlook the necessity for fixed principles. He was independent to a fault, and frequently differed from his colleagues. When a precedent stood in his way he did not hesitate to pass it by. " There is no such thing in law," he said, " as a rule which says that the court shall determine that to be true which the court believes and knows to be untrue." All his learning and experience had been in common law, and, like most of his colleagues, he was not above an occasional sneer at equity. But in the practical administration of justice as a judge of appeal he was, perhaps, next to Bowen, the common law judge who displayed least bigotry in favor of common law techni- calities as opposed to equity. However little his style may be admired, his opinions are, in substance, invariably inter- esting and suggestive.^ Le Lievre v. Gould, (1893) 1 Q. B. 491; Johnstone v. Milling, 16 Q. B. D. 460; The Bernina, 12 P. D., 58; Mitchell v. Darley Main Colliery, 14 Q. B. D. 125; Bowen v. Hall, 6 do. 333; Randall «. Newson, 2 do. 102; Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, 23 do. 598; Johnson v. Roylton, 7 do. 438; Harrison v. Duke of Rutland, (1893) 1 Q. B. 142; Niboyet v. Niboyet, 4 P. D. 1; Currie v. Misa, 10 Ex. 153; R. v. Judge of the City of London Court, 66 L. T. 135; The Gas Float Whitton, 65 I.. J., P. 17; Dawkins v. Antrobus, 17 Ch. D. 615; Angus v. Dalton, 6 App. Cas. 779: Drew V. Nunn, 4 Q. B. D. 661; R. v. Kevn, 2 Ex. D. 63; R. v. Bunn, 12 Cox Cr. Cas. 338; Brunsden v. Humphrey, 14 Q. B. D. 141; Thomas v. Quartermaine, 18 do. 685; Finlay v. Chirney. 20 do. 494 • Merivale v. Carson, 20 do. 275; Henty v. Capital & Counties Bank, 7 Q. B. D. 174; Mackonochie v. Penzance, a do. 697; Abrath v. North Eastern Ry., 11 do. 440; Sewell v. Burdick, 13 do. 159; Rankin v. Potter, 6 E.' & I.
 * The following cases will give an accurate idea of his great labors: